Something must be left to chance; nothing is certain in a sea fight
Interpretation
In uncertain situations, some unpredictability is unavoidable.
Horatio Nelson's quote highlights the inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of life, particularly in high-stakes situations like a sea battle. It suggests that while we can prepare and strategize, we must also accept that some outcomes are beyond our control, and taking risks is a part of facing challenges bravely.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing risks and uncertainties in business.
Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman, as you do the devil.
Never break the neutrality of a port or place, but never consider as neutral any place from whence an attack is allowed to be made.
To do nothing was disgraceful; therefore I made use of my understanding.
Let me alone: I have yet my legs and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and his instruments. I know I must lose my right arm, so the sooner it's off the better.
In honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them.
Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.
If my revelation of having bipolar II has encouraged one person to seek help, then it is worth it. There is no need to suffer silently and there is no shame in seeking help.
I developed a problem with authority. Any time that authority was what I interpreted as being unjust, I stood up to it, and that became my personality.
When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or 'Trouble Woman.' It means 'I give you hell.' But I don't care what names they call me. I'm a fighter; I'm very focused on what I'm doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked.
Continuously, we have to fight to defeat the primitive tendency towards the glorification of arms, the adulation of force, born of the illusion that injustice can be perpetuated by the capacity to kill, or that disputes are necessarily best resolved by resort to violent means.
If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it, let us fight against destiny, even without hope of victory.
Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.
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